Rising Tide

Despite what might potentially become our best efforts to reverse climatic change it is widely suggested that sea-levels will inevitably rise displacing the millions of residents inhabiting coastal lands. But it seems its our human nature not to address the issue until we're swimming in it, so solutions at this point are relatively minimal.

Concepts will and should come from designers, and I would hope during this downturn that perhaps Landscape Architects volunteer our time to offer solutions. In that spirit, the Bay Conversation and Development Commission out in San Francisco recently announced winners of the Rising Tides Competition. The competition, which drew 130 entries from 18 countries, challenged designers to create waterfront strategies that envisioned a 55-inch rise in sea level over the next century.

Instead of awarding the $25,000 grand prize to one winner, the impressive jury (Michael Sorkin; Walter Hood, the landscape architect; Marcel Stive, scientific director of the Water Research Centre in Holland; Denise Reed, a professor and water researcher at the University of New Orleans; and Tracy Metz, an American-born Dutch architecture critic) decided to split the prize six ways. Below is at the winners’ ideas:

{Topographical Shifts at the Urban Waterfront, by Wright Huaiche Yang and J. Lee Stickles, click for large PDF}{100 Year Plan, by Derek James Hoeferlin, Ian Caine, and Michael Heller, click for larger PDF}{RAYdike, by Thom Faulders, click for larger PDF}{BAYARC, by a team of designers and engineers from SOM, click for larger PDF}{Folding Water, by Liz Ranieri and Byron Kuth, of Kuth Ranieri Architects, click for larger PDF}+Found at Metropolis Mag